Tag: Spina Bifida

By Dave Andrusko Each and every time an unborn baby undergoes prenatal surgery, it inevitably raises the obvious question. This child is either partially or completely removed from her mother’s womb, surgeons work their wondrous ways, and she is placed back inside her mom where she nestles down until delivery time. Yet a child of …

By Dave Andrusko When Georgia Axford, 19, and Tyler Kelly, 21, discovered during a routine 20-week scan their unborn daughter Piper-Kohl had spina bifida, they were told the British National Health Service could attempt to perform corrective in utero surgery. Spina bifida is a congenital defect of the spine in which the spinal cord is …

By SPUC—the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Great news for babies with spina bifida In a week that has seen two parliamentary attempts to strip protections from unborn babies, especially in Northern Ireland, the press has been celebrating surgeons’ ability to operate on babies in the womb with spina bifida. Huge operation For …

Nine months later her baby is developmentally “right on schedule” By Dave Andrusko When Michelle Blaire of Hermitage, Pa. learned her unborn child had been diagnosed with the most severe form of spina bifida, she told WFMJ-TV she was given three options. “Abort—always the first one given,” she told reporter Caroline Collins— repair after birth, …

Parents rejected abortion By Dave Andrusko Last October we wrote a post based on two stories written by New York Times Health and Medicine reporter Denise Grady which we headlined, “Parents reject abortion, mom undergoes experimental surgery to treat her son who suffers from severe spina bifida.” It was one of my favorite stories for …

By Dave Andrusko Denise Grady is a first-rate Health and medicine reporter at The New York Times. I love reading her stories for her ability to break incredibly complicated medical stories down into layman’s language and to inject a dose of her own humanity. Which brings us to a pair of terrific complementary stories written …

By Fr. Mark Hodges August 7, 2017 — Catherine and Paul Harper had the most socially acceptable reason to abort their 20-week preborn baby. Doctors diagnosed him with severe spina bifida, where his spinal nerves are uncovered, permanently damaging his brain, internal organs, and joints. Plus, the little guy had a malformed cerebellum where balance …

A Kiwi baby is just the third to benefit from the skill of a Brisbane team. By Carolyn Moynihan Editor’s note. “Australasia” refers to Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean. Baby Benjamin Harper lies in his cot with a slim feeding tube trailing from his nose, …

By Sarah Terzo The late author and theologian James Tunstead Burtchaell received the following letter from a disabled woman and her husband: “Amniocentesis and its search and destroy philosophy… We cannot emphasize too strongly the evil of destroying an unborn child who may be deformed. I can give personal witness to the fact that such …

By Nancy Flanders Catherine Harper of Auckland, New Zealand, flew to Brisbane, Australia, in December to receive surgery on her preborn son who was diagnosed with a severe form of spina bifida. The procedure, which must be performed between 16 and 26 weeks gestation, has been available in the United States for years, but was …

By Dave Andrusko In the last decade NRL News and NRL News Today have carried dozens of stories about in utero surgery performed on unborn babies, usually in cases of children prenatally diagnosed with spina bifida. Such surgery is almost routine in the United States– doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have reportedly performed …

By Dave Andrusko Editor’s note. Not so long ago there was a fair amount of skepticism whether in utero surgery was, on the whole, a good idea for babies diagnosed with spina bifida. As we talk about in “First baby in France to have spina bifida repaired in utero, Mother and child doing well,” such …